The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-02-09
FRIENDLY ADVICE TO GROVER
A Letter of Bill Nye's Which Has
Just Seen the Light.
HupsoN. WIS. June u. 1886


D. c.:
Ny DEAR SIR.-You have now as
sumed new duty and taken upon your
self an additional responsibility. No
contented with the great weight o.
national Affairs sufficient to crush any
orher pachyderm, you have cheerfully
and almost gleetully become married
man. While 1 cannot agree with you
politically, Grover, l am forced to ad-
Fire your courage.
This morning new life opens out tc
you-the life of a married man. It is
indeed a humiliating situation. To be q
president of the United States, the
reust about of free people, is d trying
situation but to be a newly-married
president, married in the full glare Of
official life, with the eye of divided
constituency upon you, is to place
your eye where nerve is absolutely
essential. l am surprised, Grover
honestly, as between man and man
that you should have tried to add house.
keeping to all this other agony. Had
you been young and tender under the
wings Knight have understood 1t; but
you must admit, in the quiet and sane
tity of your own home, Grover, that
you are no gosling. You have arrived
at mans estate. You have climbed the
barbedwire fence which separates the
fluff and bloom and blossom and bum BILE
bee, OF impetuous youth from the yellow
fields and shadowy orchards of middle
life. You now stand in the full glare of
LIES meridian. You are entering upon
a new experience. Possibly you think
that because you are president, the
annoyance peculiar to the life of new,
green groom will not reach you. Do
not fool yourself in this manner. Others
have made the same mistake. Position,
wealth and fame cannot shut out the
awkward and trying circumstances
which attend the married man even as
the sparks are prone to fly upward.
1t will seem odd to you at first, Mr.
President, after the affairs of the nation
have been put aside for the day and the
government freproof safe locked up
for the night, to go up to your boudoir
and converse with a bride with one
corner of her mouth full of pins. A
man may write a pretty fair message
to congress, one that Will be excepted
and printed all over the country, and
yet he may not be fitted to hold a con-
Veration with one corner of a woman's
mouth while the other is filled with pins
To some men it is given to be great as
statesmen, while to others it is given to
b. fluent conVersationalists under these
circumstances.
Mr.. President, may be taking great
liberty in writing to you and touching
upon your private affairs, bnt | noticed
that everybody else was doing 1t, and
so [ have nerved myself up to write
to you having once been a married man
myself, though not under the same
circumstances. When l was married l
was only plain justice of the peace.
Flooding quietly along and striving to
do my dut. You was then sheriff of
your country. Little did we think in
those days that now you would be a
freshly married president and I the
author of several pieces which have
been printed in the papers. Little did
we think then, when was justice of
of the peace in Wyoming and you a
sheriff in New York, that to-day YOUR
timothy lawn would be kicked al to
pieces by your admiring constituents.
while | would be known and love-
wherever the English language is tam
pered with.
So we have risen together, you to a
point from which you may be easily
observed and dayed alive by the news
papers, while am the same pleasant,
unassuming, gentlemanly friend of the
poor that l was wnen only justice of
the peace and comparatively unknown.
cannot close this'letter without e&-
pressing wish that your married life
may be joyous one, as the paper of
Laramie has said, lard that no cloud
may ever come to mar the horizon of
your welded bliss" (This sentence is
not my own. l copy it verbatim from a
wedding notice of my own written by a
western journalist who is now at the
Old Woman'G home }
Mr.. President, [ hope you will not
feel that l have been too forward in
writing to you personally over my own
name. | mean to do what is best for
you. You can truly say that all | have
ever done in this way has been for your
good / speak in plain way sometimes,
but 1 don't beat about the bush. 1 see
GQdG you 10 uOl MduG " lave any en-
crossed bills sent TO you for a couple of
weeks. That's the way l was. l told all
my creditors to withhold their engros-
sed bills during my honeymoon, as
was otherwise engrossed. This remark
made me a great many friends ard
added to my large circle Of creditors.
1t was atterward printed in a foreign
paper and explained in supplement of
eight pages.
We are all pretty well here at home.
l may go to Washington this fall if /
can sell block of stock in the Pauper's
Dream, a rich gold claim of mine in Elk
mountain. lit is yery3 rich claim,
but needs capital to develop it. (This
remark is not original with me- l quote
from an exchange.)
II | do come over to Washington, do
notlet that make any difference in
in YOUR plans.
Remember that l have not grown
cold toward you just because you have
married. You will find me the kind of q
friend who viii not desert 80 ujust when
you are in trouble. Yours, as hereto
fore,
BILL NYE
P. ST send you to-day a card
receiver. 1t looks like silver. Do not let
your wife bear on too hard when she
polishes it. l was afraid yWI might try